PackageKit is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

suite of

software application Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

s designed to provide a consistent and high-level front end for a number of different

package management system A package manager or package-management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals w ...

s. PackageKit was created by Richard Hughes in 2007, and first introduced into an

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

as a default application in May 2008 with the release of

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

9. The suite is

cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software ...

, though it is primarily targeted at

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading on ...

s which follow the interoperability standards set out by the freedesktop.org group. It uses the

software libraries In computer science, a library is a collection of non-volatile resources used by computer programs, often for software development. These may include configuration data, documentation, help data, message templates, pre-written code and subro ...

provided by the

D-Bus In computing, D-Bus (short for "Desktop Bus") is a message-oriented middleware mechanism that allows communication between multiple processes running concurrently on the same machine. D-Bus was developed as part of the freedesktop.org project, ...

and

Polkit Polkit (formerly PolicyKit) is a component for controlling system-wide privileges in Unix-like operating systems. It provides an organized way for non-privileged processes to communicate with privileged ones. Polkit allows a level of control o ...

projects to handle inter-process communication and privilege negotiation respectively. PackageKit seeks to introduce automatic updates without having to authenticate as root, fast-user-switching, warnings translated into the correct locale, common upstream GNOME and KDE tools and one software over multiple Linux distributions. Although bug fixes are still released, no major features have been developed since around 2014, and the package's maintainer predicts that it will gradually be replaced by other tools as technologies such as Flatpak and Snap become more popular.

Software architecture

PackageKit runs as a system-activated

daemon Daimon or Daemon (Ancient Greek: , "god", "godlike", "power", "fate") originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and philosophy. The wo ...

, named packagekitd, which abstracts out differences between the different systems. A library called libpackagekit allows other programs to interact with PackageKit. Features include: * installing local files, ServicePack media and packages from remote sources * authorization using

* the use of existing packaging tools * multi-user system awareness – it will not allow shutdown in critical parts of the transaction * a system-activated daemon which exits when not in use

Front-ends

* pkcon is the official front-end of PackageKit, it operates from the

command-line A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive command (computing), commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invokin ...

. GTK-based: * gnome-packagekit is an official GNOME front-end for PackageKit. Unlike

GNOME Software GNOME Software is a utility for installing applications and updates on Linux. It is part of the GNOME Core Applications, and was introduced in GNOME 3.10. It is the GNOME front-end to the PackageKit, in turn a front-end to several package ma ...

, gnome-packagekit can handle all packages, not just applications, and has advanced features that are missing in GNOME Software as of June 2020. *

is a utility for installing the applications and updates on Linux. It is part of the GNOME Core Applications and was introduced in GNOME 3.10. Qt-based: File:Kpackagekit.png,

Apper Apper (originally named KPackageKit) is a free and open source Linux front-end application for the PackageKit package management service by KDE. Apper also has one main difference compared to the old KPackageKit: Apper can list applications ins ...

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Discover Discover may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''Discover'' (album), a Cactus Jack album * ''Discover'' (magazine), an American science magazine Businesses and brands * DISCover, the ''Digital Interactive Systems Corporation'' * ...

Back-ends

A number of different

s (known as back-ends) support different abstract methods and signals used by the front-end tools. Supported back-ends include: *

Advanced Packaging Tool Advanced package tool, or APT, is a free-software user interface that works with core libraries to handle the installation and removal of software on Debian, and Debian-based Linux distributions. APT simplifies the process of managing softwar ...

(APT) * Conary * libdnf & librepo, the libraries upon which DNF, (the successor to yum) builds *

Entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodyna ...

* Opkg *

pacman originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The ...

* PiSi *

Portage Portage or portaging (Canada: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a ...

* Smart Package Manager * urpmi * YUM *

ZYpp ZYpp (or libzypp; ''"Zen / YaST Packages Patches Patterns Products"'') is a package manager engine that powers Linux applications like YaST, Zypper and the implementation of PackageKit for openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise. Unlike some more b ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Packagekit Applications using D-Bus Free package management systems Free software programmed in C Free software programmed in C++ Free software programmed in Python Linux package management-related software Linux PMS graphical front-ends Package management software that uses GTK Package management software that uses Qt

Software architecture

Front-ends

Back-ends

See also

References

External links